Page 176 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
They could do this.
This could work.
He knew it.
‘I was wrong too,’ she admitted.
He scowled. ‘About what?’
‘Us.’
‘What about us?’
The delicate tendons in her throat tightened. ‘We deserve everything.’
‘I am offering you everything you asked for,’ he said. ‘You will never be alone or lonely. We’ll be friends. We’ll be intimate. We will be a family.’
‘I want more.’
‘There is no more.’
‘There is,’ she said, and her shoulders rose. Her spine straightened. ‘There is love.’
‘Aurora—’
She shook her head. ‘I love you, Sebastian.’
Her eyes misted.
‘And I need you to love me back.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE GROUND OPENEDbeneath Sebastian’s feet. One step in the wrong direction, one step closer to her, and he knew he’d fall. Straight back into hell.
He released her hand.
It hurt, everywhere, to know he’d never take her hand again. Never hold it. Never feel the softness of her flawless skin press into his much rougher callused palms.
Because he had to let go.
He had to lethergo.
‘Don’t.’ Her grip tightened on his splayed fingers.
He would not close them.
‘Don’t shut me out,’ she said. ‘Don’t…Please.Sebastian…’
Another broken promise.
He’d sworn never again would she beg. But here she begged him. With her big brown eyes. With her fingers holding on tightly to his.
His heart hurt. Its erratic thump was a raging beast inside him. Because here she was, begging for his love, and he couldn’t give it to her. He would not. The type of love she spoke of had lived within him once, lived in his core. Love had been his purpose. And he’d needed it so much that it had destroyed him.
He wasn’t so naive. He felt it again. Now. Love.
But saying it aloud, acknowledging, was different.
